My View: Far right Illinois News Network hates me, and that’s OK

Thursday

Jun 26, 2014 at 4:02 PMJun 26, 2014 at 4:02 PM

In the June 23rd edition of this newspaper, I was called a liar by Lesley Nickus of the Illinois News Network (INN). I’d never heard of them. It turns out they are “powered by” the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI). No big surprise she defended her fellow employee, Scott Reeder.

The IPI is a conservative think tank funded by far right-wing groups. I ruffled her feathers when I called Scott Reeder a lobbyist. He’s not a “lobbyist” in the sense of schmoozing politicians to essentially bribe them for favors. He does the same thing, but he lobbies directly to people through newspapers to brainwash them into supporting the corporatist agenda. What Reeder does is much worse than lobbying.

He’s a propagandist, paid to write anti-working class articles. That is clear in his weekly opinion pieces.

The IPI gets millions of dollars every year from groups like the billionaire Koch brothers, who have pledged to spend $300 million dollars this year alone to elect far right-wing ideologues in the upcoming elections.

Other support to the IPI comes from groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Google them some time. They exist to pass laws that boost corporate profits.

David Koch ran for vice president in 1980 as a Libertarian. The Libertarian platform that year included repealing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It included ending funding for public schools, killing the post office and repealing all forms of taxation, all campaign finance laws and the minimum wage. It is not a coincidence that those policies are supported by the Republican Party today. They’ve already ended campaign finance laws. What’s next?

To paraphrase Franklin D. Roosevelt, if the IPI hates me, then I welcome their hatred.

Throughout my legal career, I have stood up for the “little guy” against multi-billion dollar Corporations that trample on our rights. They don’t believe they are rich enough. They don’t just want more; they want it all. They want to put in place those planks of the Libertarian platform from 1980, and they are doing just that.

So when Nickus talks about how high their journalistic standards are, and how they don’t have “preconceived and closed minded political biases,” follow the money. They couldn’t be more biased against the working classes. What they do is the same thing as lobbying, only they lobby low-information voters to give them talking points that play on their fears and jealousies.

I will continue to speak out against these forces that are destroying our country. And I will also remember that FDR once said “the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.” That is exactly the Koch brothers’ agenda, and the IPI and the INN are being paid to push that agenda. And that is why the propagandists of the IPI and INN are much, much worse than lobbyists.

Kim MacCloskey of Durand is an attorney.

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